gentlemen won't mind your sleeping in your own house."

Thus he dismissed his new foreman gayly. But the new foreman, when he
got outside, turned back for one gruff word,--"I'll try to please yu'."
That was all. He was gone in the darkness. But there was light enough
for me, looking after him, to see him lay his hand on a shoulder-high
gate and vault it as if he had been the wind. Sounds of cheering came
to us a few moments later from the bunk house. Evidently he had "begun
right away," as the Judge had directed. He had told his fortune to his
brother cow-punchers, and this was their answer.

"I wonder if Trampas is shouting too?" inquired Ogden.

"Hm!" said the Judge. "That is one of the particulars I wash my hands
of."

I knew that he entirely meant it. I knew, once his decision taken of
appointing the Virginian his lieutenant for good and all, that, like a
wise commander-in-chief, he would trust his lieutenant to take care of
his own business.

"Well," Ogden pursued with interest, "haven't you landed Trampas plump
at his mercy?"

The phrase tickled the Judge. "That is where I've landed him!" he
declared. "And here is Dr. MacBride."

XXI. IN A STATE OF SIN

Thunder sat imminent upon the missionary's brow. Many were to be at his
mercy soon. But for us he had sunshine still. "I am truly sorry to be
turning you upside down," he said importantly. "But it seems the best
place for my service." He spoke of the tables pushed back and the chairs
gathered in the hall, where the storm would presently break upon the
congregation. "Eight-thirty?" he inquired.

This was the hour appointed, and it was only twenty minutes off. We
threw the unsmoked fractions of our cigars away, and returned to offer
our services to the ladies. This amused the ladies. They had done
without us. All was ready in the hall.

"We got the cook to help us," Mrs. Ogden told me, "so as not to
disturb your cigars. In spite of the cow-boys, I still recognize my own
country."

"In the cook?" I rather densely asked.

"Oh, no! I don't have a Chinaman. It's in the length of after-dinner
cigars."

"Had you been smoking," I returned, "you would have found them short
this evening."

"You make it worse," said the lady; "we have had nothing but Dr. Mac
Bride."

"We'll share him with you now," I exclaimed.

"Has he announced his text? I've got one for him," said Molly Wood,
joining us. She stood on tiptoe and spoke it comically in our ears.